Pushing the limits
Growing apples in the South

August 19, 2010 -  I am experimenting with low-chill apples at my home in coastal South Carolina, and have felt that these had some possiblities. I know I'm stretching the limits of apple range, but I love my apples.

The oldest tree, a Pink Lady semi-dwarf, is loaded with apples this year. After some tree training last year, it blossomed well this spring and I got good pollination. I did some hand thinning, probably not enough.

I've not felt it necessary to spray - no insect damage on the fruit, and minimal insect damage on the leaves. It may be that we are so far out of the normal range of coddling moth and apple maggot that they haven't found us yet...

I realize apples are just about impossible to grow organically, particularly in the Southeast, but my aim is to keep sprays to a minimum. So far the only spray this year was the dormant oil spray before the leaf buds broke. This tree is six years old. Its companion in age is Anna, which has had practically no bloom as of yet. It has had a bit more shade and has grown more slowly. There are several more younger apple trees of various low-chill varieties, which bloomed, but did not set fruit. I also have a young weeping crab, that I hoped would be a pollenizer.

The fruit has sized up nicely, and other than cosmetic green spots on the skins (which I can live with), I had
reason to expect a couple bushels of fruit from this tree.

The fruit is just starting to show color. However many of the fruits are getting a lesion, which turns into a rot spot very quickly and spreads throughout the apple within 3-4 days. I can see my anticipated crop evaporating...

I did some Internet searching, and find the symptoms are very similar to those described at   http://orgprints.org/13668/ on organic fruit in Europe. So I wonder if it could be Diplodia seriata causing my problem as well.

The damage starts as a ring of color, which is almost irridescent. Often a hole forms in the center of a brown spot which grows until the apple is consumed.

Weather has been mid-90's, occasionally 100, high humidity, with quick and heavy showers once or twice a week.

My question to the apple experts:  Is it too late to save the remainder with a fungicide?  What material would
I use?

Meanwhile, we are trying to salvage as much as we can of the damaged ones, by adding them to muscadine and peach jams for the pectin - which is pretty expensive stuff to buy.